I Probably Hate You

Americans relish condemnations of Middle Easters and Arabic culture as one of "hate". Google "culture of hate" and you'll find a bounty of essays, blogs and journal articles describing and dissecting the Arab world.

But the real culture of hate, an entire society that celebrates, elevates and has even built an industry around hate, is much closer to us than the lands of Sunnis and Shiites. In fact, compared to the American culture of hate, the Arabs are neophytes at best.

In America, hate is even chic and trendy. It can be mass market but it can also be elitist. There are blogs that celebrate hate as an emblem of superiority, that encourage and fuel it. Millions of Americans slavishly follow gossip mongers in all media, lusting for the latest blood feud as if little is more satisfying than celebrity role models and icons going after each other's throats. At the Grammys we award rappers who have turned hate into an entire entertainment industry.

Our politics have degenerated from productive debates on critical issues to vicious and often racist name-calling and outright personal slander.

In recent years we have been faced with a health care system in crisis, governmental corruption, poverty, illiteracy and global threats. During this time, too many political campaigns have been dominated by attacks on gay Americans, despite the complete and utter lack of any rational or legal grounds for them.

Many even argue in the name of some rather perverse version of "Jesus" that it is morally correct to hate, oppress and discriminate.

A nation built on immigrants fleeing oppression and poverty in pursuit of better lives for themselves and their families now hates and demonizes immigrants fleeing oppression and poverty in an attempt to build better lives for themselves and their families.

A number of well-known journalists, authors and publishers such as Bill O'Reilly, Rupert Murdoch and Ann Coulter have built highly profitable careers on negative judgments and outright hate mongering.

Evangelical Christianity, the most vocal and politically influential religion in this nation, proudly espouses the notion that everyone else in America and the world is going to burn in hell for all eternity. Imagine how that sounds to Muslims, especially when they are being accused of fostering a culture of hate.

The supposed Arab culture of hate is – for better or worse – founded and nurtured by a struggle against old and new cultural, political and social manifestations of Western colonialism. What's America's excuse for its own culture of hate?

The myth has been that America is a land of tolerance, diversity and freedom. The reality is that we are a very angry and intolerant people; a nation that has elevated hate to a sophisticated art form. In fact, the Arabs have a lot to learn from us.

Yet more of Mr Rothstein’s mindless reactionary hatred and resentment to all things Western and especially all things American.

Not that NO American ever engages in negativity or some hatefulness, but this article is ridiculous. On her worst day, Ann Coulter is a controversial columnist making fun of left wingers – not a terrorist trying to figure out how better to kill as many innocent people as possible. There’s just no beginning of a legitimate comparison of the malicious hate so rampant in the Muslim world today with any American media figure.

But on top of that nonsense, he of course has to excuse the poor, oppressed Muslims who are only killing and destroying because the bad American colonialists are making them.

But I’m sure Mr Rothstein feels a warm glow of moral superiority in his willingness to condemn his own people in the name of those who would like nothing better than to throw him down the well.

Arch Conservative

Dick….

Al has you pegged.

[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]

You claim that so much hate exists in America and then infer that only conservatives hate as there was no hate coming from the left in America. Yeah everything about Christianity in America is hateful but so called tolerant liberals calling Bush hitler and joking about assisinating him, and calling black republicans like Michael steel racial slurs isn’t hate right Dick?

As for your America is more full of hate than the muslim world bullshit argument… I don’t recall the last time a group of American civilians took it upon themselves to hijack some planes and use them to kill thousands of civilians in another nation… I don’t recall the last time an AMerican news organization was given video footage of American civilians beheading foriegners and did so with gleee… I don’t remember the last time an AMerican president publicly said that another nation must be wiped off the face of the earth…

Your stupidity and ignorance knows no equal Dick….if you keep it up you may just may make MCH look like a reasonable, balanced and practical contributor to BC

The personal attacks from Al and Arch are truly sad and disturbing, but I suppose they do very much support my point.

Arch Conservative

That’s right Dickey… there was nothing else in either of responses to your pink blathering.

I might personally insult jackasses like you in every post because you deserve it but I also directly address at least one or two things that was said by said jackass.

That’s more than can be said for you.

You seem like the kind of guy who would have written this article in the 1940’s about America because we fought in Europe and FDR interned Japanese Americans but now he’s probably one of your heroes because he gave us all kinds of social welfare.

Col. Mustard

Richard, interesting article, and irony is funny when the ignoramuses respond. They attack arguments you don’t make because they don’t understand the ones you do.

“Your stupidity and ignorance knows no equal Dick”

ac, you don’t need to draw attention to the fact that your stupidity and ignorance surpasses Richard’s. Your comments make that clear enough.

Arch Conservative

AL I guess we are ignoramuses because we don’t hate America and heap praise upon the inane rantings of those who take every opportunity to bash and belittle the nation.

Trickey Dick claims that American Christianity is nothing but unadulterated hate that makes muslims feel bad… I point out the fact that there are countless examples non American radical muslims committing acts of terroism and violence today in the name of islam but virtually no American Christians doing such things and I’m the one who’s to stupid to realize what’s really going on in the world?

It’s to bad Professor plum didn’t sneak up behind you in the billiard room with the lead pipe before you put your worthless two cents in on behalf of the village idiot that wrote this article Colonel Mustard.

Col. Mustard

First off, it’s obvious that he doesn’t hate America, but does have a problem with some of the people in it.

Saying we Americans aren’t as bad as terrorists is quite a bar to set. I would shoot for higher goals.

Are you saying that Christians don’t believe that those who don’t except Christ as their savior won’t get into Heaven? Because that’s the way I’ve always heard it, and that only leaves one other place as an alternative.

You should take the gum out of your mouth because it is obviously affecting your reading comprehension. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that it’s not your abnormally small brain and borderline retardation that is the problem.

[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]

If you hurry, you can get one more inane ill-informed comment in before the nurse shuts off the lights.

duane

Ding, ding! We got a real barnburner goin’ tonight folks! Back with Round Three after these messages. Don’t touch that dial ….

Shoot, and I parked out in Nalle’s high points article. Do I dare give up the primo spot to see where this one takes us?

duane

Archie and the Col. are duking it out over at Elvira’s place, too. It’s like that fight scene in The Quiet Man (speaking of Duke). Hell with the seats. These guys are are all over the map. I’m waiting for Kramer to show up and say, “Can’t you two see what’s happening here? Isn’t it obvious that you’re both head over heels in love?” Well, maybe not.

My most fervent wish for the New Year is to see Arch take on Moonraven.

Arch, I don’t recall seeing you on the threads Moonie frequents, but I’m sure you’d have some…er…constructive criticism for her. She’s a truly hateful Commie bitch who richly deserves a tongue lashing from you.

See Dave Nalle’s High Points of 2006 or any article mentioning Hugo Chavez or Latin America. Give her hell, Arch!

Mohjho

Everyone up for a group hug?

Ruvy in Jerusalem

This article reminded me so much of the stinktulectual crap I see in Ha’aretz that I almost thought I was reading that awful rag instead of Blogcritics. Bing’s (hiding under the moniker Arch-Conservative) ridiculous critique of the article has taken away both from its strengths and its glaring faults.

Richard, the article is well written – let’s give you that, it’s coming your way. And I have plenty nasty about America to say myself, so we’re not talking from the point of view of wrapping the red, white and blue around oneself and pointing sanctimoniously. Indeed, I found enough wrong with American culture to leave so that my grandchildren would be Jews and not mindless, self-absorbed airheads with not a thought in their brains but for the prettiest bauble in the shopping mall.

But you had to pick the worst pieces of shit on the planet to defend in your effort to show up hate in your own country. This is what makes your piece so reminiscent of Ha’aretz – where self-hating Jews condemn their own country on a regular basis and praise the likes of terrorists and murderers in their stead – all for the sake of a puny intellectual point.

As bad as the millions of gossip-followers who follow the gossip-mongers like sheeple are, as bad as the “good Christians” who would persecute others in the name of “Christian love” are, as bad as the rappers who have turned hatred into multiples of lucre with which to fill their pockets as they beat people up and get arrested for the very violence they celebrate, they are nothing like the hate mongers of the Arab and Moslem world.

You forgot that the tallest building in New York was brought down not by Christians with signs saying “Jesus hates fags!” or idiots on the airwaves like Coulter or even by gansta rappers singing about “ho’s and bitches.”

Three thousand (probably a lot more) of your fellow countrymen were killed by Arabs, by Wahhabi bastards who believe that you do not have a right to live because a) you’re a homosexual, b) you’re a Jew, and c) you’re an American. They flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center and the buildings fell. How quickly you self absorbed American airheads forget!!

These are the scum you have chosen to say could learn a lot about hate from Americans.

The first thing you need to learn about keeping up a hatred is to learn to remember. This too, you have forgotten. [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]

Arch Conservative

“Are you saying that Christians don’t believe that those who don’t except Christ as their savior won’t get into Heaven? Because that’s the way I’ve always heard it, and that only leaves one other place as an alternative.”

It looks like you’re the one with the reading comprehension deficit you zipperhead because that’s not what I was saying at all.

I was saying that the recent goings on in the world prove that Dick is full of shit when he claims that Americans are the most hateful people.

A bunch of Christians in America saying that their religion is the only true path to god is a far cry from the hate of the radical moslems in the middle east who say that their religion is the only true path to god and then try to kill everyone who disagrees with them.

If I am so wrong please prove it Col. Show me how American civilians have committed acts of hate on par with those acts of the muslims responsible for 911, the spain train bombing, the london subway bombing, the murder of theo van gogh, the beheading of foreign civilians in the middle east and all of the other acts that those wacky jihadists have been up to lately.

Despite what you, Dick and Rosie O’donnel might htink, fundamentalist Christians are not nearly as much a threat to the world today as fundamentalist muslims are. If you can’t do so I suggest you shut your friggin piehole and accept that Americans do not have the last word in HATE!

The second point I was making was that it’s obvious that Dick thinks the only people capable of hate in America are conservative leaning people as he only mentions their bad deeds and not any of those on the left such as joking about assissnating a sitting president, using racial slurs to refer to minorities who don’t tow the leftist line, the baseless character assissination of supreme court justices nominees, and the countless other expressions of irrational hatred of the left.

Elvira I doubt you will ever see me posting on any of the threads moonraven posts on as I’m not really interested in reviews of the vagina monologues or the latest NYT times propaganda about the evils of conservative America.

Ruvi: The only possible way to respond to your insults is to hope that you are one day able to overcome some of the damage that’s been done to you.

The Haze

one needs to look no further than this thread to understand how hate starts, right… Dick? America has problems sure,but you know what? It’s the best show in town! We’re sort of like that good lay: everybody loves to come and get some, but nobody wants to call us a lady at the end of the day. To those who think and say we (America) are always the problem,I say: eat shit and die!How’s that for hate?…Dick. Who do you think created that? or was it just us f**ked up Americans again? If we took our toys and servicemen and brought them home and closed our doors to this world,I think you pukes would curl up and implode.I’ll chip in a dollar if you want to run away from home.It’s pungent tripe like this article that stirs the pot… Dick. Propaganda is a wonderful game to play right…Dick? Just ask our leftist media. You probably think you sleep good at night too,don’t you… Dick? Well guess what? It was the blood of Americans who gave their lives for asswipes like you that made it possible. People like you that entice the hatred out of others… I wouldn’t piss up your ass if your heart was on fire! How’s that for hate…Dick? Ahh shit! My coffees cold now. Thanks… Dick!

Matt Sanchez

It sounds like Richard Rothstein hates Fox News. It’s amazing he can’t even perceive his own bias on this one.

I’m glad that many of you disagree with my thesis that America has become a culture of hate; but it would be helpful for those of us who are misguided liberals if you would present thoughtful snd civil rebuttals rather than inflamatory pejoratives and crude personal attacks dripping with hate.

Col. Mustard

Again, the people who think that setting the bar at terrorist should set it a little higher for America.

Here’s an example of hate I stumbled across reading the news.

“A radio talk-show entertainer whose earlier statements that he “may” have to assassinate members of Congress if the wrong people were elected Nov. 7 now has set a timetable for those killings.

In a statement on his website, Hal Turner noted that a newspaper has reported that a bill granting amnesty to illegal aliens is expected to be enacted in January, when the Democratic Party takes control of the U.S. Senate and House.

“ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS WHO INTRODUCES, CO-SPONSORS OR VOTES IN FAVOR OF ANY SUCH AMNESTY WILL BE DECLARED A DOMESTIC ENEMY AND WILL BE CONSIDERED A LEGITIMATE TARGET FOR ASSASSINATION,” Turner posted on his website.”

Ho ho, he’s quite the humorist isn’t he.

“it’s obvious that Dick thinks the only people capable of hate in America are conservative leaning people as he only mentions their bad deeds”

Read the piece again only this time have your tutor do it slowly.

“At the Grammys we award rappers who have turned hate into an entire entertainment industry.”

Are rappers now right wingers because I thought the entertainment business was all left wingers?

“In recent years we have been faced with… governmental corruption,”

Is this your admittance that corruption is only a Republican problem? I thought it was a problem on both sides of the aisle.

The beautiful irony of you detractors is you continue to prove his point, but are too stupid to realize it.

“Elvira I doubt you will ever see me posting on any of the threads moonraven posts on as I’m not really interested in reviews of the vagina monologues or the latest NYT times propaganda about the evils of conservative America.”

Arch, you don’t know what you’re missing! Have you ever seen her comments? You could really sink your teeth into her. She is the nastiest, most rabid, arrogant, American hating Commie I’ve ever encountered.

I can’t vouch for her vagina, but she certainly excels at monologes. I’m also sure as shittin’ she thinks the NY Times is the epitome of extemist right-wing propaganda.

Try it, you’ll like it!

The Haze

#19 – You wanted hate and I gave you a taste of it Mr. Rothstein. I don’t hate you,hell I don’t even know you,I was just trying to show you how easy it is for hate to be displayed.These individuals who patrol this site find it easy to rant and rave but probably wouldn’t have the “nads” to do it in person.This is the negative side of the net,they think they can say whatever they want cause nobody’s gonna get me.Don’t you agree?You mean to tell me that somewhere in the back of your mind you didn’t think that this would piss someone off and create controversy? Please don’t insult our intelligence Mr. Rothstein.I enjoy civil and thoughtful debate anytime with anyone so maybe the next time you write a piece like this try reading in a different pair of shoes.And by the way, I do agree(to a certain extent)that we all live in a world of “hate” groomed by none other than us,for I have seen the enemy and it is “?” Thank you and Good Day Sir.

zingzing

archie: “I point out the fact that there are countless examples non American radical muslims committing acts of terroism and violence today in the name of islam but virtually no American Christians doing such things and I’m the one who’s to stupid to realize what’s really going on in the world?”

bush: “god told me to invade iraq.”

so… there’s one. i guess that’s your “virtually” right there. too bad it had to be the one that starts aggressive wars and kills hundreds of thousands of innocents.

i think richards point has more to do with the fact that our foreign policy and our internal bigotry towards people in this country affect far more people than militant islam has so far. we know how to hate right along with the rest of them, whether or not that hate manifests itself as death and destruction or as refusing the same rights that we enjoy to others just because they are different.

Civility certainly has fallen on bad times in this country, it’s true.

But the largest number of Americans continue to coalesce around the center, and reject extremist rhetoric. The 2006 election was one result of this. The success of sane voices like Rick Warren’s among the evangelicals is another.

The civility here at Blogcritics is in worse shape than elsewhere. And why are the most ferocious arguers and name-callers also the worst writers here? You know who you are, and so do we.

They represent both left and right, and I cringe when I read their pitiful, unpleasant posts, devoid of logic or grace.